People who are banned

[schweb]

Lets be honest, piracy is all over the net and people talking about it.

Why ban someone for asking a question about something they shouldn't? (MacNewbie in the other thread for instance)

Surely deleting the thread and emailing or PMing the person telling them that if they ask about it again will result in a permanent banning?

Just my two penneth anyway...

Our rules are clear. We ask people to read them before posting, and IMHO, ignorance of the rules is no excuse when breaking them.

FYI, asking for pirated software is not a permanent ban by itself.

It's all well and good to say "it's in the rules" but come on ... do you really think everyone who signs on reads all of those rules (or remembers them all)? And even if you think it's a forum member's responsibilty to remember every rule, is banning the best punishment for an infraction?

Ignorance of the rules is no excuse and is a weak argument. Since I haven't actually read the US law against murder, should I be able to kill someone and get a slap on the wrist because I never read it?

Besides the point. How many forum rules must you remember, in reality?

• Don't behave like a moronic beast to other members,
• don't post spam
• and don't talk about pirated software.

That pretty much sums up our rules...good job!

I love the "free speech" arguments.

Heh...this is a private forum and you have no rights. You follow the rules or you don't get the privilege of posting on this private board. Seems fairly simple to me.

And that is absolutely correct. While we strive to be fair, in essence, this is not a public space and by posting here you are agreeing to the rules as set forth by the staff.

 

[ToddG]

I thought MS's licensing allowed you to re-use a license as long as the previous copy was removed from the old machine.

Doh!

(this line entered to avoid the "The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 5 characters." error)

 

[boneheadz]

Maybe. For some reason I though the XP license was for a single machine, but could be moved to different machines as long as it was only used on one.

I believe that is true, but most people have a copy of windows that came pre loaded on the computer. MS will not support these copies of windows and I don't beleave they are portable.

bone

 

[imacmatt09]

Under the Windows XP End-User License Agreement (EULA), you may install one licensed copy of Windows XP on one computer.

indeed i was wrong. that came from the windows website

 

[baggss]

I believe that is true, but most people have a copy of windows that came pre loaded on the computer. MS will not support these copies of windows and I don't beleave they are portable.

bone

True, OEM copies of Windows don't count for some odd reason. Apparently M$ only counts the "over the counter" version you buy in the box.

 

[ToddG]

Whew. All of my copies are OEM.

And to MS's credit, once I explained what I was doing they did give me a second "key" so I could install WinXP both on my Parallels VM and on the computer in a separate Boot Camp'd partition.

 

[DrQuincy]

From the point-of-view of those that run the forum you can't be seen to back down. If you start giving into one member then where does it stop? Why even bother having forum rules in the first place?

Having said that, you can be too over the top. I had a thread closed on CGTalk once and it was perfectly innocent. I'd tried to install the Adobe CS2 trial on a computer I bought off a friend. Even though I'd never used it before it was saying trial expired. I posted on their forums asking why and the thread got closed - an admin told me I was encouraging piracy!

In this case however, he was blatently asking about getting illegal software . . . really anyone should know better than that. I think the way it's been handled is fair. Admittedly, some forums might just issue a warning for that but as a previous poster said this is a private forum.

 

[Ice Cream Man]

MS EULA for XP Home specificates "

1.1 Installation and use. You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the Software on a single computer, such as a workstation, terminal or other device ("Workstation Computer"). The Software may not be used by more than one processor at any one time on any single Workstation Computer."

the XP Pro says 2 CPU. And I don't know what they are doing for quad core.

I think it BS that they specify how many CPU you can run it with. How do you legally run an 'xgrid' type, or cluster applications thru in Windows if you can't use Windows on more that the specified CPU.

However i don't remember it specifying weather it can migrate. And I don't see why they should have to specify it. it seams obvious that section 1.1 makes it quite clear. So as long as it's on only one machine, it's not an issue.

Like with my copy of XP Pro. I ran out of activations(5)(because of major upgrades/changes) and so I called MS up, they asked why then, now it's automated i think. i said that I had disassembled the previous machine. And that this was a new machine. And now I have five more activations.

 

[baggss]

I think it BS that they specify how many CPU you can run it with. How do you legally run an 'xgrid' type, or cluster applications thru in Windows if you can't use Windows on more that the specified CPU

You pay M$ a lot of money for a special license.

 

[macAttack]

I think people should be banned for blatantly asking "where can i download such and such"
first, its against that rules, and clearly violates them. The member should have read the rules first, and obviously they didn't which means they could infringe again, without knowing
and secondly, JUST GOOGLE IT IDIOT!

 

[baggss]

I think banning a n00b for that is counter productive, and everybody deserves a second chance so you should get 1 warning and that's it. After that though....

 

[CrossBones]

I saw that dude posting so the ban must have been short lived.

 

[NanoBite]

I've been there and done that and am actually a better person for it.

I started out just turning to this forum when things went belly up and demanding that someone help me, afterall the forum is full of geniuses and what did I know?

Then after I was banned I realised how selfish I'd been and the rest is histoire!

I'm quite new to the internet and Mac OS X and know nowhere near the amount of stuff that some here do. I don't give a rats, as I can always Google.

 

[dtravis7]

Pulse-8, you have turned into a very helpful user here at Mac Forums! Keep up the great work.

 

[CrossBones]

Yep there is a ton of great information on this site --- daily ---

Everybody does a nice job helping others. I sure appreciate it!

 

[KoDorSean]

Pulse-8 is awesome. He has helped me many times with many questions.. Thank you sir!

 

[BuzWeaver]

This happens on virtually every forum... someone gets banned for asking where they can download Logic Pro for free and either gets banned or someone who answers gets it.

Then there is a huge moral outcry about freedom of speech, blah blah and how the mods are too heavy handed etc. What bothers me is that people think downloading software illegally is acceptable. In fact, people think it's 'cool'.

I'm more than happy to take the negative rep on the chin for saying this, but people who steal software are scum. They try and dress it up in pseudo revolutionary or anti-establishment language like it's some big attack on the corps, but the the same people who download Office 2003 or cracked versions of Tiger, would probably feel very differently if it was them on the receiving end of theft.

Also, there is no excuse these days. You hate microsoft? Don't want them getting your hard earned allowance? Well don't download Office from haX0rZ.com... use OpenOffice or NeoOffice or any number of shareware apps that can do almost everything the professional aps can do anyway.

[/end rant]

:bomb:

The lay person doesn't typically understand how Law works much less their constitutional rights. When you join a Forum you agree to the terms and conditions of that site, you are entitled to post, however you do not have the right to post. If you want the right to post and express your free speech then you'd have to make your own forum, one you control.

 

[schweb]

I think what needs to be understood here is that bans are not always permanent. With the infraction system there are "points" assigned to various violations as well as the length of time those points stay on your record so to speak

The number of points you have at any given time defines how long the ban remains. Asking for illegal software will result in a 1 day ban if it's your only infraction.

 

[DrQuincy]

Pulse-8 is awesome. He has helped me many times with many questions.. Thank you sir!

Amen.

 

[Dillinger-63]

A bit off topic, but I didn't want to start another post. What's up with sites like these?

http://oemofoem.com/index.php